Do You Need To Protect Your Kidneys From Global Warming?

www.douglassreport.com

It's official: I have now heard the absolute stupidest consequence of the so-called global warming climate crisis. Scientists – and I use that term very loosely – are apparently worried that global warming will lead to an increase in the incidence of kidney stones.

You're probably wondering how in the world something like global warming could possibly affect the occurrence of kidney stones. Here's the "logic" of this latest nonsensical claim: kidney stone formation accelerates in warm climates, thus when the entire world is warmer, there will there be more kidney stones.

It's true that kidney stones are more common in hotter climates. Sweating removes fluid from the body, which increases the salt concentration in your urine, which increases the rate at which the kidney stones develop. Kidney stones are formed by the salt crystallizing in the kidneys, and one of the root causes is dehydration.

According to Margaret Pearle of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, where this study was conducted, "We see a relationship between kidney stones and temperatures everywhere; even in places with air conditioning, warmer temperatures mean more stones."

There's even an existing kidney stone "belt" in the southeastern U.S. Statistically, there are 50 percent more cases of kidney stones in the southeast than in the northeast every year. Scientists claim that this "new" threat of global-warming-induced kidney stones would theoretically (and I emphasize theoretically) push the spread of kidney stones northward, increasing the annual number of cases to at least 1.6 million by 2050.

The researchers don't stop with kidney stones. They believe that any and all ailments associated with the warmer parts of the globe will also become more prevalent as greenhouse gases crank up the planet's thermostat. Also on the "up and coming" list: heat stroke and malaria.

All of this, of course, depends on the climate change theories (and yes, they are only theories) of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which opines that global warming will result in average global temperature jump of three to seven degrees over the course of the 21st century.

It's hard for me not to be sarcastic when dealing with doomsayers who believe we'll all be several feet beneath a flood of melted polar ice caps (don't worry – the corpses of all those polar bears should do just fine as flotation devices). There's so much junk science and politics wrapped up in the global warming scam, it makes the idiotic Y2K panic seem rational.

But trust me, if global warming will truly be as catastrophic as Al Gore and others of his freaked out, tree-hugging ilk claim, an increase in the number of kidney stone cases will surely be small potatoes compared to the collapse of Civilization As We Know It.